Women Need to Know They Don't Have to Take Bullying in the Workplace

Use these tools to stand up for yourself.

By Jessica Press

Sep 19, 2018

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Last year, 19.5 million American women were bullied at work. Infuriatingly, there wasn't much they could do about it. Let's all help change that. Redbook and TLC Network are teaming up to honor heroes fighting bullying in their communities. Here's what three of our "Give a Little TLC" award recipients want you to know.

My inbox was flooded — overflowing with incoming mail. I'd put out the call to a handful of experts and Facebook groups for women's stories of workplace bullying. I thought perhaps I'd hear from a dozen women.

Instead, within a week, nearly a hundred stories from around the country and around the world poured in, with a steady stream continuing in the days and weeks that followed. They worked in hospitals, academia, sales, food service — anywhere and everywhere. There were women still living in fear of retaliation. There were those who shared their journeys of deteriorating marriages, depression, anxiety, and PTSD-like symptoms. There were a surprising number who had involved lawyers and were limited in what they could even reveal due to nondisclosure agreements.

The story I heard from Jill C. ticked all three boxes. "I'd worked at my job for about a decade, and when I came back from maternity leave, I had a new boss," says Jill, who lives in Pennsylvania. "I was determined to make a good impression, but she never warmed up to me." As time went on, things got worse: "I was singled out for criticism, denied promotions, and hassled about taking time off for my disabled child's doctor's appointments." So Jill did what she thought was the smart thing and met with HR about her concerns. That only escalated the bullying. "My new boss went back to HR with the most baseless accusations against me. I had coworkers and even my direct supervisor defending me, but HR took my boss's side," she says.

Jill lost weight from the stress and says she developed anxiety despite having no history of it. "I eventually went to someone at the top of the company, who admitted having heard similar stories over the years and encouraged me to keep standing up for myself." That support proved useless without action, though, and Jill ultimately got a lawyer and negotiated a settlement, the terms of which prevent her from using her last name here. "It is such a relief to be out of that toxic place. But I work in a small industry and am fearful of her spreading rumors or otherwise sabotaging my ability to earn a livelihood," she says.

That's the thing about bullying, the common thread that ran through all the stories I heard: It makes you feel helpless. In 2017, 30 million American workers were targets of bullying — 65% of them were women. A University of Illinois at Chicago study showed that workplace bullying was 2.5 to 3.5 times more prevalent than workplace sexual harassment, and its mental health impact has been found to be worse. Yet despite its prevalence and harmful effects, unless there is proof that you are being bullied because of your gender, race, or inclusion in a protected group, "it is not legally actionable, and that has allowed it to run with impunity," says Gary Namie, Ph.D., cofounder and director of the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI). But now there are signs that the tide is changing.

Finally, Validation

The topic of workplace bullying has been bubbling up more and more recently. As I was writing the final draft of this piece, Miss America 2018, Cara Mund, posted an open letter on Facebook in which she defined workplace bullying and claimed that higher-ups in the Miss America organization had "systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me … in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis." She continued, "After a while, the patterns have clearly emerged, and the sheer accumulation of the disrespect, passive-aggressive behavior, belittlement, and outright exclusion has taken a serious toll." (The organization denied her claims.)

But many of the women I heard from had realized only recently that workplace bullying was a bona fide thing, a defined phenomenon. Not recognizing bullying for what it is isn't surprising given how our culture often pardons, redeems, and even rewards bullying behavior as a means of getting results. Just think of the pervasive pop culture examples: Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Pradais one of the most famous, a fearsome leader whose abusive behavior people tolerate or look past in light of her expertise, brilliance, and power.

The misperception that bullying is a schoolyard issue, not something that happens to adults, also contributes to the self-doubt that so many targets feel. "Every day I would come to work feeling like, What is she going to do today? remembers Deb Falzoi. "Now that I know the ways bullies work, I realize she was very textbook. There were false accusations, removal of my responsibilities. At the time I didn't know what to call what was happening to me. When I finally found the term 'workplace bullying' and saw that there was research on the issue, I felt a sense of relief. I hear that same thing from other targets." Falzoi has since founded Dignity Together, which helps targets, therapists, and employers address workplace bullying — including understanding which behaviors cross the line into abuse.

Bullying behaviors include the expected "yelling, shouting, and screaming" as well as "use of put-downs, insults, and excessively harsh criticism" and more subtle actions meant solely to undermine, like "unreasonably heavy work demands" that cannot possibly be met and "discounting achievements and stealing credit for ideas or work." Bullying is not just a one-time explosion from a boss or coworker on a bad day. According to WBI, it is "repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators." It is abusive conduct or verbal abuse that is threatening, humiliating, or intimidating, Namie explains. "Some psychologists say bullying is a violation of the employer's agreement to provide safety," says Namie. "OSHA-style safety is physical, but psychological safety can be even more important."

Taking Action

Namie and his wife, Ruth, the cofounder of WBI, along with David Yamada, professor of law and director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, are leading a movement to pass the Healthy Workplace Bill, which Yamada wrote. The bill would give both workers and employers clear-cut rights and clearly defined boundaries, which are of course the basis of any healthy relationship, professional or otherwise. "It provides an incentive for employers to adopt reasonable steps to prevent and correct bullying, which translates to having a policy and faithfully enforcing it," explains Namie.

In the meantime, what can any of us do when the stakes are so high — when so many of us are supporting families and relying on a paycheck or health insurance and don't have the luxury of just walking away? For starters, we can begin talking. "A lot of times what happens when we're experiencing bullying at work is we don't have the courage to go forward and have the conversations with someone at a senior level or someone in HR who can help us resolve whatever's going on," says Sarah Sheehan, the cofounder of Bravely, a new resource that connects employees with neutral coaches outside the workplace for confidential conversations.

Having been bullied herself in previous jobs, Sheehan believes passionately in Bravely's mission. "I left a job that I had so many high hopes for because I could not work under the level of bullying I was experiencing," she says. Had she had a resource like Bravely then, perhaps things would not have gone that far. Namie is skeptical of HR's ability to broker change, and Teresa A. Daniel, Ph.D., an employment lawyer and dean of the Human Resource Leadership Program at Sullivan University in Louisville, Kentucky, agrees that going to HR can make things worse — and has in many cases. Nonetheless, she argues that it is the first step: "HR can be a great resource, but it depends on the culture of the organization. At organizations that say, 'We treat everybody with respect and won't allow this kind of interaction to stand,' bullies end up either getting fired or quitting."

If taking the issue higher up doesn't net results, Daniel advises women to begin "an aggressive search for a new job. The problem with staying in a workplace bullying situation is that over time you start to feel devalued, and the more devalued you feel, the less confident you are to go out and get another job. So it's a real slippery slope."

Our experts are hopeful that soon, quitting won't be the best option most women feel they have. "For the first time, I am really hopeful," Daniel says. "I think the changes we are seeing with respect to sexual harassment after the #MeToo movement are going to spill over. Women are becoming more vocal because for the first time they have some confidence that they will be believed. The atmosphere is changing, and corporations will hopefully realize they can't tolerate any kind of bad behavior at work and will impose accountability," she says. Whether or not those changes come to pass in the near future, the bottom line is, says Daniel, "It's important for women to know that they don't have to take it anymore."

More Ways to Help

Redbook and TLC Network are teaming up to honor heroes fighting bullying in their communities. Here's what three of our "Give a Little TLC" award recipients want you to know.

Have "The Talk" Early

"I've heard people say, 'My kid's too young and innocent to learn about bullying.' But nobody ever says their kid isn't old enough to learn kindness," says Kristen Caminiti. So the social worker founded Kindness Grows Here, which helps teach Maryland children how to practice compassion. "If we stop kids from becoming bullies, then there won't be any victims to worry about," she says.

Reassure Them It Won't Get Worse

That may convince children to speak up. "I hear all the time that kids don't tell because the bully threatened that if they do, they will get it 10 times worse," says Jaylen Arnold, 18. After being bullied by classmates for having Tourette's Syndrome, he started the nonprofit Jaylens Challenge Foundation so he could use his voice and story to empower others.

Don't Assume Anything

One misconception Dianne Grossman says too many adults have: that only certain types of children are targets — i.e., ones who are outwardly different than what society deems normal. But her daughter Mallory was a blonde, well-liked cheerleader — and was still bullied for months before eventually taking her own life. "We need to be aware that this can affect anyone," she says. Mallory's Army, her New Jersey-based nonprofit, is dedicated to teaching teachers, parents, and students the facts.

This article originally appeared in the October 2018 issue of Redbook.

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